


Golden

by Omgpieplease (SceneryTurnedWicked), Sophia_Prester



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Anniversaries, Established Relationship, Friendship, Future Fic, Grief, Hopeful Ending, Illness, Illustrated, M/M, Old Age, Reminiscing, happy marriages, hockey rivalries never die, implied patater, life goes on - Freeform, sad but not a total angst fest, specific warnings about major character death in end notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 09:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13121175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SceneryTurnedWicked/pseuds/Omgpieplease, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophia_Prester/pseuds/Sophia_Prester
Summary: Even the happiest of stories must eventually come to an end.





	Golden

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who don't want to venture into a character death story without knowing what you're getting into (I can sympathize), there are some spoilery notes at the end regarding who, when, and how. Anyhow, despite the nature of the subject material I'm hoping this comes across as more melancholy (and maybe a little bit hopeful) than dark.
> 
> Many thanks as usual, to [Aishuu](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Aishuu/pseuds/Aishuu), for her help, her cheerleading, and her unflinching honesty. Also, I had the great privilege and pleasure of being able to commission [Omgpieplease](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SceneryTurnedWicked/pseuds/Omgpieplease) to do artwork for the piece. He did an amazing job of capturing some of my favorite moments in the story. ([Find him on Tumblr.)](https://omgpieplease.tumblr.com/tagged/my-art)

_Friday, May 18, 2068_

 

Jack wakes from a dream just after sunrise, but he doesn't feel awake. 

He never does. Not anymore. Some days, Jack wonders if waking up is the dream and all it will take is a sudden noise to jolt him back to a different, better reality.

As it does every clear morning, a sunbeam slants along Bitty's side of the bed, warming it so it's as if he has only just left - padded down the hall to the bathroom, perhaps, or gone to start breakfast. For a moment, Jack sees a familiar glint of silvered gold and a sleepy but brilliant smile, but it's nothing but sunlight on a vacant pillow. There's no one there to hear the quiet _good morning_ he murmurs out of habit as he reaches into emptiness.

After three years, Bitty's absence is no longer surprising, but its permanence still seems impossible.

Jack rolls to his back, closes his eyes, and wishes.

He wishes he could go back three years. Wishes he could go back to sleep and back to a wonderfully vivid dream of a time when everything was as it should be. As it should have been forever.

Yhe smell and sound of coffee brewing jolts him back to reality - the house's sensor net would have started the coffee maker as soon as it registered the first signs of imminent wakefulness - but today something that should be a comforting part of his routine only makes him ache for the smell and sizzle of bacon and the sunshine aroma of toasting bread.

Today, it should have been even more than that, but instead it's just another morning.

Jack sighs before he can remind himself not to, and of course it triggers a coughing fit. The house's AI silkily asks him if he needs anything, but he ignores and eventually it stops asking. 

In theory, he should be more worried about the spring cold that snuck up on him a few weeks back and has settled in for the long haul, but he figures some hot coffee will loosen things up to where his chest doesn't feel so damned tight and he won't sound worryingly hoarse and short of breath when Jeanette calls to check up on him. 

If she realizes what today is, she might even call him twice.

Maybe she wouldn't worry quite so much if he called her for a change, but he's not up for conversation just yet. In the end he splits the difference by asking the house to message her to let her know he's up (and by implication alive and something resembling well), that he loves her, and she should give him a call later that afternoon. 

This may or may not keep her from fretting herself into an excuse to call earlier. Even though Bitty was her biological father, Jeanette's struggles with anxiety have always mirrored Jack's in heartbreaking ways.

Once again, he has to remind himself that none of that is his fault. Or Jeanette's, for that matter.

The kitchen is quiet. Most mornings, Jack is able to tune out the still-unnatural silence. If he can't, he can always ask the house to play the NHL channel or a familiar audiobook, but today his memory supplies the sound of Bitty singing along to whatever fragment of song happened to be running through his mind. 

Jack closes his eyes and listens for a moment, and while it's not a shock when he opens them and Bitty is not standing at the sink, swaying softly to the sound of his own voice as he washes the dishes, it is a disappointment.

Jack almost calls up one of Bitty's old playlists, maybe one from their college days, but he shakes his head and pours a cup of coffee. He laughs at a sudden flash of Bitty being delighted to find 'Single Ladies' playing on the radio during a road trip only to clutch at his heart in despair when the commercial break cheerfully identified the station as the area's premier oldies station. Jeanette, who was in the back seat and deep in the throes of tweendom, had laughed so hard and so long that Bitty couldn't help joining in with her mocking of his doddering old age, a thirty-eight which now seemed impossibly and gloriously young.

Last night, Jack had dreamed about that road trip. Or maybe it was a different trip, or one that never was. That wasn't important. What was important was that he was driving an old convertible, Bitty in the passenger seat beside him as they raced towards the setting sun. The light shone rose-gold on Bitty's hair and on the autumn leaves, and his laughter trailed back in the wind like a banner.

In his dream, Jack was so happy it _hurt_.

 _I love you so, so much, sweetheart,_ dream-Bitty had said. _I still do. I always will._ This felt more like a memory than a dream, but from when? Bitty was as bright and golden as he was fifty years ago, but his eyes were as wise as if he had lived twenty times longer than that.

 _God, I miss you, bud,_ Jack had said.

Bitty had just laughed and told him that everything was going to be okay.

That's when Jack woke up.

Well, he woke up as much as he ever did anymore. And, contrary to Bitty's promise, everything was not okay.

Jack shakes aside the memory, which is refusing to fade the way most dreams do in daylight, and makes himself go about his usual routine. Coffee, email, messages, and then a protein shake and a slice of dry toast for breakfast (Jeanette insists it's not enough, but these days it's easier if he treats food as fuel and nothing more).

Routine doesn't help.

The problem is, his mind keeps filling in the gaps where other people were supposed to be. Dust swirling in a sunbeam is Bitty dancing through on his way to the bedroom. The settling and creaking of the Victorian townhouse is a teenage Jeanette trying to sneak down the hallway of a different, older house. A wool blanket wadded up in the kitchen armchair is a five-year-old Suzie curled up with a book, happily oblivious to the world around her.

But the house is empty. There is no husband, no daughter, no granddaughter. Suzie is in Philadelphia, Jeanette is in Evanston, and Bitty is gone.

For a moment, Jack can't get enough air and it's not just the chest cold.

After three years, missing Bitty eventually became one of those constant aches he usually accepts as just sort of being there, much as he no longer pays much mind to the pain in his knees and hips or the stiffness in his fingers. But today, missing Bitty is like the day before a shift in the weather, when all the aches and pains and ghosts of old injuries insist on making themselves known in all their grief.

He's not surprised. Not today of all days.

 _Ah, well. May as well wallow in it,_ he thinks, not without humor. Some other day he might have the strength and desire to fight it, but today it would be stupid to even try. 

He has to stop halfway to the den to catch his breath. He'll tells himself he can message the doctor later if he's not feeling better, but doesn't bother telling the house to set a reminder. Right now, he has more important things to think about.

The walls of the den are lined floor to ceiling with some of the more artsy photographs Jack has taken over the years. Most of them are landscapes and old buildings, with one goose photo Bitty had insisted on. 

Jack is justly proud of his photos, but right now they may as well be wallpaper for all he cares. He's more interested in the pictures that are clustered on the end tables and on the mantel. There are a few holographic portraits courtesy of friends and family, but he and Bitty always preferred traditional photos or the kind of old-fashioned digital displays that played silent video or shuffled through images at a sedate pace. 

He stands by the mantel and watches one of his favorite videos and drinks his coffee. The video was shot in their old farmhouse back in Pennsylvania, a house Jack misses dearly even after twenty years. In the video, Bitty sits in a rocker with their infant granddaughter in his arms, gently rocking back and forth as he whispers something to her. Now, as he was back then, Jack is awestruck by the look of love on his husband's face. He watches, waiting for Bitty to look up and register his presence with a blinding smile, but the video only repeats its ten-second loop and Bitty never takes his eyes off of Suzie. 

He really should give the video frame to Suzie. After all, she and Bitty had been close the way Bitty and his Moomaw had been close once upon a time. Maybe even closer. Another photo on the mantel shows Suzie standing on a blue-painted step stool as she helps Bitty dish chocolate chip cookie dough onto a baking sheet. Next to it is a faded photo of Bitty standing on the exact same step stool as he helps Moomaw cut biscuits.

The photos will go to Suzie as well. The stool itself will go to Jeanette. That way, Suzie's little boy can stand on it a few years from now, once he's old enough for his grandmother to show him how to roll out pie crust or scoop out cookie dough. 

Or maybe he'll stand on it as he learns how bang rocks together until they're lethally sharp, given that the grandmother in question is Jeannette.

From somewhere, Bitty tells him, _Other than the rocks, that's a wonderful idea, sweetpea! Be sure you write that down._

Jack turns to smile at him, but then he remembers. He also feels the first signs of light-headedness, so he sits down before he _has_ to sit down. He closes his eyes and concentrates on getting air into his aching lungs.

Funny, but sometimes it's easier to remember something that couldn't have happened (Bitty crying with joy when Suzie told them she was expecting a boy and wanted to name him Eric) than it is to remember what really happened (Suzie's giddy excitement over her announcement crumbling into sobs as it hit home that her beloved Pop-pop would never get to meet his great-grandson). 

There is another picture up on the mantel that Jack loves dearly, but he can't look at it. Suzie's wife took the photo shortly before Jack first got sick this past December, and it shows four generations of Zimmermann-Bittles in one photo. As much as he loves the photo, Jack prefers the version that he holds close in his own mind, the one that has Bitty sitting beside him as he should be, holding baby Eric in his lap. 

Instead, he looks at his and Bitty's wedding photos for a long, long time. 

His favorite doesn't look anything like a wedding photo. No one is dressed in anything fancier than a game-day suit (Shitty is clearly wearing a tee shirt with a rainbow-colored cannabis leaf under his blazer and what's visible of Chowder's shirt is suspiciously teal) and they're crowded around a table at Jerry's rather than posed faux-candidly by something photogenic. There are some of these more formal photos from the fancy reception they had conceded to three months later up in Montreal, but Jack prefers this one, where everyone looks happy and hurried after a morning courthouse ceremony that would be followed by the second game of the Eastern Conference final that night (they won). 

In the photo, Bitty and Jack are flanked by Chowder and Shitty in their roles as 'best dudes,' as Shitty had put it, and other members of SMH and a gaggle of assorted Falconers and other friends are crowded around and in front and behind. Lardo is sprawled out across the table in an appropriately artistic pose. For some reason that probably made sense at the time, she is brandishing a bottle of ketchup in one hand and a sugar shaker in the other. Jack smirks as he sees Kenny smashed awkwardly between and behind Snowy and Tater and not so much smiling at the camera as giving Tater a death glare. If only they had known...

Jack runs his fingers across the glass, touching each face in turn, and marvels at how a moment from half a century ago can feel as if it will still be right there if he just gets up and walks around the corner. He looks at his friends and sees them as they were then, as they are now, and everything in between all at once.

More and more everything is starting to blend together. And that's okay. Really, it is.

 _Of course it is, sweetheart. We had a wonderful life, and every bit of it is worth remembering, even the hard parts,_ he hears even though he's alone with only the AI as a sorry excuse for company.

Jack likes to think that his mind is as sharp as it had ever been, but sometimes he needs to remind himself that he and Chowder had not lived at the Haus at the same time, or that he and Whiskey had not even been at Samwell at the same time. He _knows_ how things happened, but sometimes other things _feel_ just as true, if not more so. It's the same sort of truth as when he looks up to see Bitty in a glint of sunlight or hears him humming as he works in the kitchen. 

Or when his mind pulls a much-loved voice from his memory, and it's so vivid that he half-believes that if he turns around, Bitty will be right there.

Bitty has been gone for three years, but what is that compared to the decades they had together? More and more, it's easier to believe that Bitty is just running a bit late, as usual. Jack would not be surprised if he heard the back door slam shut, nearly drowning out Bitty's _Hi, honey! I'm back!_

It's more surprising that he hasn't heard it. Today, Bitty feels so present that his absence is particularly frustrating.

Jack looks at the picture again, at how Kenny is off to the side and standing behind the main wedding party with Snowy blocking part of his face. Sometimes, Jack can almost remember agonizing over whether to ask Kenny or Shitty to be his best man. Well, it was a long time ago, so maybe he can be forgiven for forgetting that at the time, he and Kenny were only just figuring out if they could be friends again. 

In reality, there had been no question that Shitty would be his best man, and Jack had worked himself into a full-blown panic attack over whether simply inviting Kenny to the wedding would be rubbing salt into a still-open wound or if not inviting him would shatter the barely healed fractures in their friendship.

Bitty counts breaths with him now and fifty years ago, but there's also Kenny laughing and chirping him with a cheerful, _Seriously, Zimms? What the fuck were you even worried about, huh?_

More and more, it is hard to believe or even imagine there had once been a time when he and Kenny had stopped being friends for a horrible little while. It feels less like a memory and more like something that happened to someone else in a bad dream.

Jack checks the time and is dismayed to find it's already noon. He should probably get himself into a better head-space before Jeanette decides to take his request to call him this afternoon literally and call him at twelve-oh-five. Besides, after looking at the photos, there's another call he wants to make first.

Jack takes a moment to make sure he's at least halfway presentable before asking the house to call Kenny. It's been nearly a week since they've spoken, and it will be an entertaining pick-me-up, especially if he can get Kenny started on a rant about something.

(He hears Bitty muttering something about _you boys_ in false disgust before wandering off to the kitchen to give them some time before joining in on the call.)

Kenny picks up on the second ring, and his holographic image flickers to life on the ancient 3-DisPlay on the coffee table. A cat flows off Kenny's shoulder and out of view before Jack can get a good enough look to see if it was Anastasia or Clyde.

"Zimms! Good to see you not looking _completely_ like death warmed over."

Jack is about to make a witty remark about revenge for the number of times he's seen a hungover and/or sleep-deprived Kenny, but when he tries to speak, he starts coughing again. He holds up a finger, signaling Kenny to wait until the fit has passed.

"Okay, I take that last comment back. Is that still the same fucking cold you had the other day?"

Jack nods. "I've decided it's only polite to give it a name since it's obviously decided to stick around for a while. How does 'Evelyn' sound to you?" 

He hears Bitty stifle a laugh at the name, which had belonged to one of the more annoying Phelps aunts.

Kenny's mouth twists into a not-smile, but he looks more amused than otherwise. "Is this the part where I tell you to get your stubborn ass to the doctor already because that sure as shit sounds like the start of bronchitis or worse?"

"Funny, but you don't look like Jeanette," Jack snarks.

Kenny actually laughs at that. "Shit, Zimms. I swear to God, Jenny is just getting sweet, sweet revenge for how much of a worry-wart you were when she was a baby. Every childhood sniffle, I swear it was the fucking apocalypse."

"I wasn't -"

"You called me at two a.m. _two days before the fucking playoffs_ , convinced that she was going to be permanently psychologically scarred because you 'let her' get diaper rash. You were a worry-wart. Admit it."

"That's different! She was helpless and completely dependent on us for literally everything!" 

Jack can still conjure up the sense of terror and wonder that nearly buckled his knees when the nurse first handed Jeanette to him and Bitty. He can still feel the conviction that he was going to somehow break this fragile little speck of a human. It is harder to remember how Kenny's joke about his panic attack once would have been a low and bruising blow rather than the affectionate teasing it is now.

"Whereas you are a stubborn old cuss who probably hasn't even bothered taking anything for that cold today," Kenny says. "How long has 'Evelyn' been canoodling with you, anyway?"

Jack shrugs. "Not that long." He can't recall if he actually took anything at breakfast or just thought about it.

"Uh-huh." Kenny doesn't even try to hide his disbelief. He doesn't nag though, doesn't remind Jack about the flu that almost put him in the hospital right before Christmas or the pneumonia that _did_ put him in back in March. "How many times a day is Jenny calling you?"

"At least once." He raises an eyebrow. "How often does she call _you_ to tell you how worried she is about me?"

Kenny ducks his head and gives a grin that looks far more smug than the sheepish he seems to be trying for. "What can I say? I'm her favorite uncle."

"Not to mention a horrible influence," Jack says affectionately. Kenny had been an absolute godsend during the turmoil of Jeanette's sophomore year of college.

"Someone had to step up to the plate. For what it's worth, I've been trying to tell her to back off a little with the mother-henning. She should be going out to Boston to visit soon, right? I can't imagine Northwestern's final exams go past the end of May."

"She has two weeks at the start of June before she heads up to Nunguvik for that dig. She's hoping Suzie can get time off work to come visit at the same time."

Kenny studies him for a good long while, long enough that it gets under his skin.

"What?" Jack snaps.

"Just... Don't take this wrong, but you don't sound as excited about it as you should be. Last week you were bitching about how I get to see Jenny way more than you do. What's going on, Zimms? Why'd you call? You're almost never the one to call unless there's just been a game on and you want to have a bitch-fest about how they still can't come up with a clear definition of goalie interference."

Jack has to stop for a moment because breathing hurts even more than it does already. He rubs a hand down his face and wills himself not to cry, wills the wounds to not re-open. He holds it together, barely. It's not that Kenny wouldn't understand - it's that he doesn't think he could pull himself back together if he does fall apart.

"It's..." This time, he is able to take a deep breath. It burns. "Today's our anniversary. Mine and Bitty's."

Kenny's worry abruptly shifts into sympathy. "Shit. I'm sorry. Which one?"

"Fiftieth. I mean, it would have been. Should have been."

Kenny takes in a deep breath, releases it. Even with the constant glitching in the hologram, Jack sees the brightness in his eyes, sees his grief. "Well, fuck."

It's all that needs to be said, really.

Today, he and Bitty should have been celebrating their golden anniversary. 

Instead, Bitty died three years ago this January. He had been clearing the walk, something he had done a half-dozen times that winter with no problem. Jack still couldn't remember the doctor telling him what happened. Instead, it was more like something he read about someone else a long time ago:

_It was a sudden and massive heart attack. Even if you had been right there, there was nothing you or anyone else could have done, Mr. Zimmermann._

But Jack should have been there, even so. He should have been able to say goodbye. Instead, he didn't even know anything was wrong until he heard an ambulance siren growing less and less distant and their neighbor pounding on their door.

Even now, there is part of him that thinks he'll wake up three years ago and Bitty will come back inside and stomp snow off his boots and complain about the cold and shout for his lazy-ass husband to come warm him up already.

"You should do something when Jenny and Suze come to visit in June, when maybe it's not so raw," Kenny says with unusual gentleness. "Hell, I might go and drag Alyosha out to Boston with me - it's been what, a year since we've seen you in actual hugspace? Hell, given that it's off-season, maybe Scotty can get time off work to see his favorite uncle."

"That would be wonderful." And it would be, even if something about the thought of it makes him unaccountably melancholy. "But what if the Blues make it all the way to the finals?" 

Their chances are good this year, and Jack knows they're hungry for it after a heartbreaking loss to the Kings in the conference finals last year.

Kenny shrugs one shoulder contemptuously. In the background, a cat yowls. Probably Clyde, given the volume and dissonance. "Pfft. I'd just be hanging around like a useless idiot in the owner's box like usual. I don't actually do anything these days except serve as a walking, talking piggy bank."

"You mean you're going to risk depriving your team of their lucky charm during the finals?" Their usual chirping lifts half a lifetime off his shoulders, like he knew it would. He's glad he called.

"They don't need me to win Cups for them anymore," Kenny says, and there's not a trace of bitterness to be found. If anything, Kenny sounds rightfully smug. "They've got eight already."

"Four of which were yours," Jack says as if by rote.

"Four of which were mine," Kenny affirms. Surprisingly, he does not go on to mention his legendary three-peat. "So, yeah, they can do without my distinguished presence this year."

"Plus, it's not like you're conflicted or anything about this year's division finals," Jack says, grinning as he deliberately pokes the bear.

Kenny glowers at him. "First of all, fuck. Second of all, you. Third of all, fuck the Blackhawks, now and forevermore."

Jack laughs, keeping it soft because he doesn't want to start coughing or gasping for air, not now, when things are lighter than they have been for weeks. Any second now, Bitty will come in from the kitchen to add his own cheerfully acidic commentary on Kenny's dilemma.

It's hard to remember there was a time when Kenny didn't play for St. Louis, even after the uproar over the unexpected trade just hours before the trade deadline. It's hard to remember even though Jack can still hear the hour-long rant he'd been subjected to after the Aces threw Kenny under the bus and out to the fucking Midwest because of fucking cap space and because those fucking fuckers in management thought thirty was fucking 'over the hill' when they could get younger, fresher meat on the cheap. 

Of course, Kenny got his revenge just a few months later when his new team trounced the Aces in a humiliating sweep of the conference finals and then went on to win their first Stanley Cup in the history of the franchise. After that, he 'bled blue' for the rest of his very long career and despised the Blackhawks like he was born to it. 

"So, Natalya being their second line center still hasn't done anything to soften your attitude towards your sworn enemy?" It's far too easy and much too fun not to take the jab.

Kenny actually growls instead of answering 'no,' but there's no mistaking the glint of pride. Ever since she was drafted by the Hawks six years ago, Natalya Parson has been gleefully burning up the record books and the tabloid headlines the way her grandfather had decades before.

"The Blues are _my_ team. Literally. Well, they're one-third my team, if you want to be a pedantic share-counting asshole about it. Therefore, Nat is a filthy traitor," he says, but it's only because Kenny likes ranting almost as much as he likes bragging about his brilliant granddaughter.

"Now, it's not her fault the Hawks snagged her instead of DiAngelo like everyone thought they would," Jack reminds him for what must be the hundredth time. It's an old joke, but it's also a little bittersweet around the edges. If the draft had gone as everyone had expected, Natalya would have gone to the Bruins for Jack's last year before he retired as GM. He and Bitty had been looking forward to it and so had Kenny.

"Yeah, yeah. Well, if she puts me in the position of having to root for the Hawks - excuse me, the _fucking Blackhawks_ \- to win the Cup, I will cut her out of the will. I will be very proud of her, of course, but out she goes, snip snip," he says, making a little scissors motion with his fingers. Then he cackles. "Shit. Remember Bob, when you told him you were gonna take the coaching job with the Flyers?"

Jack just shakes his head and chuckles at the memory of his father's reaction.

"I swear," Kenny continues gleefully, "I have never seen anyone look so damned proud while also looking like he just threw up in his mouth a little. Anyhow, speaking of Nat and being proud while also wanting to yack - and you can't tell _anyone_ this, not even Shits - she told me Dan Saitoh's gonna retire by the end of this season, Cup or no Cup."

That gets Jack's attention. "What? But didn't he just extend his contract at the start of the season?"

"Concussions," Kenny said with no further explanation needed. Jack winced as he recalled the hit Saitoh had taken in that game against the Pioneers. He also remembered the friends and former teammates who had suffered far more than they should have, back in the days before there were scans that gave even a slim chance of intervening when someone was one hit away from one too many. 

"He'll do a PSA or a fundraiser something once all the uproar fades," Kenny continues, "not that it'll actually change anything. Anyhow, the long and short of it is that Nat's getting the C next year."

Despite the circumstances, Jack smiles wider than he has in, well, too damn long. "That's amazing! Good for her!" There had been five? six? other women who had received the C in the last twenty-five or so years, but there was something special about it finally happening in one of the Original Six. "It would be stupid for them not to give it to her after she locked up the Richard, the Ross _and_ the Rhéaume."

Kenny nods, and he's not even pretending to look disgruntled anymore. "Yup. My girl's in the record books yet again. Although it's kind of pissing her off because it's stirred up all the usual Neanderthal-brained crybabies who like to whine about how it's not fair that women get a special trophy," he says, with an impressive imitation of said whining. "But fuck them. Nat's awesome."

"That she is. Tell her congratulations for me and that I'm proud of her."

"What? And let her know that I blabbed after she swore me to secrecy?" Kenny says with mock offense.

"I don't count, and you both know it."

Kenny shrugs. "Point. You can tell Jenny, too, if I don't beat you to it. Nat will want to tell Suze herself, though."

"Of course." Even with a three year age gap and living so far apart for most of their childhood, Natalya and Suzie had always been as close as sisters. "So, how on earth is she getting Tater to keep all this a secret?"

"Uh, by waiting to tell him until maybe an hour before it goes out officially? When she does tell him, you'll know because you'll hear the shouting all the way from Boston."

"Tell me about it," Jack says wryly. "How is he doing, by the way?"

"Awesome, as always. Hell, at this rate he's going to outlive us all. He'll be one of those guys who free-climbs Everest when he's a hundred and ten, and when he gets to the top he'll chug a bottle of vodka and yell down to find out what's taking the rest of the party so long."

Jack laughs. He cannot remember the last time he laughed so much in such a short span of time. "Yeah... That sounds about right."

"I'll have Alyosha give you a call when he gets back from what's left of Mother Russia and into a more civilized time zone next week," Kent promises. 

"I'd like that," Jack says, but he can't help letting a wistful note slip into his voice as he feels another stab of melancholy.

Judging by his sudden look of concern, Kenny picks up on it. "Seriously, Zimms. How are you doing?"

"I'm tired and I miss my husband. That's how I'm doing."

Kenny just nods and waits. It strikes Jack that Kenny looks like he could be a decade or even two younger than him. That wasn't the case until fairly recently - Jack knows he's aged a lot in the past few years. Hell, in the past few _months_. Losing Bitty had done most of it. Getting sick in December and again in March had done the rest.

No wonder everyone's worried about him. Knowing this doesn't make him hate it any less, though.

"I was looking at our old wedding photos..."

"Which set?" Kenny asks with a knowing grin.

"The real ones, of course," Jack answers with a grin of his own.

Kenny cackles in response, and Jack joins in more quietly. There's no need to rehash a story they both know well. Between Alicia's strange and unwavering insistence that her son's wedding should be an Event and the exponentially escalating drama on the Bittle and Phelps side of things (subjects including but not limited to: food, morals, food, guest lists, what the neighbors would think, food, and which little cousins should be asked to be flower girl and ring bearer) Jack and Bitty had quickly had enough. 

Three months after their engagement and after too many attempts to calm everyone down, they essentially said 'fuck it,' plunked down the license fee at the Providence city clerk's office and got as many of their out-of-town friends into town as quickly as possible. 

Once they allowed time for George to identify gaps in the playoff schedule, people to arrange last-minute flights and pet sitters, Bitty to figure out what kind of cake to bake, Jack to have a panic attack over inviting Kenny, Bitty to realize that if they timed it right they could get married on the anniversary of their first kiss, and to give forty-eight hours notice to their parents, their quasi-elopement took a grand total of five days. 

Unruffling the feathers of not quite two sets of parents (Coach had been more than sympathetic to their plight but also didn't like to see Suzanne upset) and getting them to understand how their persistent refusal to listen and attempts to take over had made an elopement seem necessary had taken a little bit longer.

"No offense, but the reception your folks threw for you was a total snooze-fest. Your real wedding was one of the best I've ever been to. I can't remember another wedding where the best man insisted on kegstands instead of toasts."

Jack glances over to his side, distracted by a glint of light that for a moment was someone with silver-gold hair walking past. He feels phantom fingers trail across his shoulders and the ache of Bitty's absence weighs heavily on him again. 

"It feels like yesterday," Jack says, so quietly that Kenny leans forward to hear better. "I... you and I, we were so new again back then, remember?"

Kenny's eyes narrow slightly. "Zimms, that was fucking ages ago. It was stupid. _We_ were stupid."

"I know, I know. It's just..."

He doesn't know how to finish that sentence.

"It's just that there are a lot of memories, today," he says finally, even though that's only part of it.

He doesn't say that even after talking to Kenny and laughing and joking like nothing has changed, he feels like he's only half awake, that there's part of him that's still back in bed about to wake up and find his the warmth of his husband next to him instead of just sun-warmed sheets.

It just feels so real.

What doesn't feel real is to be in this house alone, or that the man in the hologram in front of him has white hair and a lined face.

 _You okay, sweetpea?_ Bitty asks at the same time Kenny asks, "Are you sure you're okay, Zimms?"

Jack shakes his head. "I'm just tired. And I'm glad I invited you to my wedding."

He can't identify the expressions that flit across Kenny's face before he brings them under control again.

"Dude. You're my best friend. My brother. Of course you invited me."

"Right. Of course. But that doesn't mean I can't say I'm glad you were there, Kenny. I'm also glad I called today. It was good talking to you."

"Likewise." Kenny slaps his knees in acknowledgment of the conversation drawing to a close. "Well, I'll probably talk to you before then, but I'll see you in June," Kenny says, and there's an anxious edge to it that demands an answer even though it wasn't framed as a question.

Jack smiles, and he hopes it's reassuring. "Tell Tater and Scott and Natalya I said hi, Kenny."

It's not an answer, and he can see the moment when Kenny decides not call him on it.

"Will do. Love ya, Zimms."

The hologram blinks off and a second later the 3-DisPlay pulses with an incoming call. It's Jeanette, which is a relief, because a delay between her call and the one with Kenny would only confirm Jack's suspicion that the two of them are conspiring in their worry over him.

It would be sweet if it wasn't so annoying.

" _Bonjour,_ Papa," she says as soon as he answers the call. The moment he sees her face and her sweet smile and warm brown eyes (so much like her Daddy's), Jack forgets he was ever annoyed by her mother-henning. She's his daughter and she's still his baby girl for all that her still-long, still-unruly strawberry blonde hair is now shot through with dusty gray and she has deep laugh lines crossing her sun and wind-roughened skin. He also has to smile because she's wearing what must be the seventh incarnation of the 'Archaeologists Do It In The Dirt' tee shirt she's had since she was sixteen. "Were you on the phone with Uncle Crappy and Aunt Lardo again?"

"Ah, no." He had spoken to them for nearly two hours yesterday, and he wonders if all that reminiscing is part of why his memories seem so much more vivid than reality can even hope to achieve today. "It was your Uncle Kenny, this time. He has some news about Natalya that he said I can share with you, but he also said Natalya will want to share it with Suzie herself," he says before she can ask what he and Kenny were talking about. 

"Good news?" she asks suspiciously, which is fair given the more creative kinds of trouble her honorary niece has gotten herself into in the past. Or maybe she's thinking about the news she had for him and Bitty right at the start of her sophomore year at Yale, and how scared she was. Now, of course, it's easier to remember Jeanette as giddy and delighted over her pregnancy instead of shaking with anger and doubt, because how could anyone see Suzie as anything but the most wonderful thing in the world?

"Well, it's good news for her, but unfortunately it's not so good for someone else" he says, thinking about Saitoh. He tells the story, and Jeanette is sincerely happy for Natalya even if she doesn't display what Jack would consider a reasonable level of enthusiasm. But then again, Jeanette had caught the history bug from him tenfold while somehow missing the hockey bug completely.

"If the Hawks go all the way, she may not be able to come out to visit in June, at least not at the same time I will," Jeanette says, the worry line between her brows digging deep. 

"That's nothing you can control." He tries to be kind about it, because he thinks he understands what's going through her mind. Every time she talks to him now, every time they see each other, there's always the underlying thought that it could be the Last Time. He had seen signs of it over the past five or so years, more so since Bitty died. Ever since he got sick, it's been a constant.

Sometimes, it feels like her anxiety over him overshadows everything else about their relationship, and part of him resents her for that. Another part of him wants so much to fix it for her and hates that he can't.

He feels Bitty sigh beside him, and he's not sure if what he hears is _bless her heart_ or _bless your heart_. Either would fit.

"Although," he says, trying to repress an evil grin, "Maybe you can delay your trip up to Nunguvik a week if you have to?" 

Instead of bristling as expected and going on a tear about logistics and timelines and permits and plans, she actually considers it for a moment. _Then_ she goes on a tear about logistics and timelines and permits and plans. She scowls when he laughs at her, but his laughter seems to ease whatever tension she's still carrying. After that, it doesn't take much to get her talking about the dig and what they're hoping to learn about the first Naskapi settlements in the area, and what theories could be confirmed or blown to smithereens. Her circuitous rambling is a comfort, in part because it is so _her_ , and in part because it reminds him so much of her father.

But the tension comes back as it always does. "I just wish I wasn't going to be gone so long to somewhere that's so hard to get to and from. I hate that I can't be closer by if something happens, or that maybe I wouldn't even know for days." She's biting at her lower lip again, something she's done often enough to leave faint but permanent dents. In a moment, she'll be wondering if maybe she shouldn't go on the dig at all.

Jack counts to ten, thinks about telling her that being only twenty yards away from Bitty didn't do a damned bit of good when it mattered most, then thinks better of it. She must pick up something of it, though, because she takes a deep, deliberate breath. And then another one. Then she laughs ruefully.

"I'm sorry, Papa. If I could turn it off, I would," she says, shaking her head and rolling her eyes as if chiding herself. "You know that."

He does. He knows it all too well. And he thanks heaven that Jeanette never got to the point he did and almost ended up turning off the anxiety (and everything else) permanently. He's also thankful for his own anxiety, in a way, because it allowed him to understand her in a way he wished he had been understood when it mattered most.

"I know, _chérie_." He kisses the tips of his fingers and holds them out to the hologram. She gives a watery smile and returns the gesture. "And you also know that if I need help, the house will alert the hospital, and if I need anything done that I can't do myself, I have more than enough money to hire it done and still leave plenty to fund all the digs you could ever possibly want to go on and then some." 

He pauses and makes sure he has her full attention, because she needs to hear this next part. "But, you also know that I understand knowing that isn't always good enough."

She blinks brightness away from her eyes, but she's still smiling. "Uncle Kenny says you're getting revenge on me for all the times I made you worry about me back when I was a teenager."

Jack laughs so hard he damn near chokes. He waves off Jeanette's concern as he gets his breath back, but there is also curiosity and merriment in her eyes.

"What?" she asks, half-laughing.

"Just remind me to smack your Uncle Kenny upside the head with a rolled-up newspaper the next time I see him," Jack says, and then he tells her what Kenny had said about her getting revenge on him.

She gapes in delighted outrage for a moment, then lets out a laugh that ends in her usual giggle-snort.

"Not only will I remind you, Papa, I'll hold him still so you can get a good thwack in. I cannot believe that man was your main source of advice on childcare."

"Hey! He had a two year start on me and your father when it came to parenting, and he was surprisingly good at it. As you would say, he was closer to the primary source."

"No, Papa, what I would say is that Uncle Kenny wouldn't fly out and try to take over like Mémé or Meemaw would have."

"That... is an entirely valid observation." Jack feels a twinge as a familiar, poisonous whisper in the back of his own mind tells him that Jeanette's comment is a subtle dig at how he and Bitty had always acted more like they were Suzie's parents than her grandparents. 

The worry-furrow reappears between Jeanette's brows. "Papa, I know what you're thinking, and it is _not_ the same. You were thirty and married. I was _nineteen_ and still in school. I wouldn't have been able to stay in school and keep Suzie if you and Daddy hadn't been there for me. For us." She pauses for a moment, then shakes her head, smiling softly with eyes downcast. "Not that I appreciated it at the time. I look back at how I - "

"Looking back, you were in the middle of a very difficult time of your life," Jack reminds her, as gentle as gentle can be. "You couldn't see then what you can see now, _chérie_. And if I look back at how I was when _I_ was nineteen, I can tell you that you handled yourself with much more grace and maturity than I ever did."

Jeanette swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand. They have had some variation of this conversation many times over the past twenty years, but as with 'I love you,' the repetition only builds and never bores.

"Stupid allergies," she mutters, and she waits for his laugh before breaking into a smile that makes her look heartbreakingly like her father. "So, is that cold of yours getting any better?"

"It's not getting any worse." He holds up a hand when she starts to say that's not what she asked. "But I have decided that I will call the doctor tomorrow if I'm not feeling better. I give you my full permission to get on my case if I don't."

Jeanette looks dubious, but doesn't press the issue. Hopefully, they're done with it.

"So, _chérie_ , tell me what's new with you."

"We spoke less than twenty-four hours ago," she says dryly, but it doesn't take long before she's complaining about her current crop of TAs, and how she might need an alibi or five for murder before finals are over. She also mentions that she might have a chance to present at a TED conference next year, but wonders if it'll be worth the knots she'll tie herself into over it.

"I wonder if I could try to win the audience over with baked goods," she says wistfully. 

Jack feels a surge of fondness along with a prickle of tears. "You'll be the most popular speaker ever." Just as she gained a love of history from him, she gained a love of baking from Bitty and could do magic with cupcakes the way her daddy did with pies.

"Are you okay? With it being your anniversary and everything?" she asks, picking up on his thoughts the way she so often does.

"Okay... is a bit of a stretch. But I'm better for talking to you, _chérie_. And with your Uncle Kenny, too." Then there are the recent conversations he's had with George and Suzie and Shitty-and-Lardo that hang in his memory as if they were today and not scattered over the past week.

The expression on her face is something he can't put a name to. He thinks it's the look you would get if your heart was being broken and mended at the same time.

"I'm glad, Papa. You sound so much better than... Well, you sound better."

She's not talking about his cough or the tightness in his lungs.

"I still miss your father, but..." He shakes his head. Part of him wants to say something about how the good days mostly outnumber the bad and that there are times where he stops and marvels at the fact that yes, he is actually happy or content or at peace. He wants to tell her that when he gets a surprise package of baked goods from her, it can sometimes make his heart sing for a week.

Another part wants to admit to her that there are still kitchen drawers and cabinets he hasn't been able to make himself open since three years ago this January, or that sometimes he throws away the cookies she sends him because on that particular day he can't bear them not tasting like Bitty's.

He wonders if he should say that he only feels half-awake anymore.

He wonders if Jeanette can hear the soft humming and half-sung words that come from the kitchen.

"I miss him too," Jeanette says. And really, what else is there to say?

Not much, because the tickle in his throat and tightness in his chest tell him that he's done too much talking today. He tells Jeanette as much.

"I'm sorry, but I'm done, _chérie_. I had been planning on calling Suzie today, but... Give her my love when you talk to her, will you?"

Jeanette nods. "If you don't talk to her first, Papa."

At the end of his talk with Kenny, Kenny had made a statement that was more like a question. This statement seems like it's meant to exact a promise. 

He shakes his head and smiles softly. "I'm done, _chérie_." 

"It's been a while since we had such a long talk. I didn't mean to wear you out," she says, and there's a little twinge of guilt there that he hates.

"It was worth it," he tries to reassure her. 

" _Je t'aime,_ Papa," she says, blinking away tears. 

" _Je t'aime aussi, ma p'tite,_." As tiny as she is in the tabletop hologram, it's easy to imagine simply reaching out and picking her up and holding her close the way he did when the nurse first handed her to him. That was forty-seven years ago, but he still feels her fragile warmth and the weight that seemed far more substantial than a scant seven pounds.

He misses her. He misses her as she is now, as she was then, and as she was in all the years between, no matter how difficult.

He tries to remind himself that she'll be here in June, but again, a strange melancholy stings at him. It's a strange blend of sorrow and anticipation, and he's not sure what to make of it.

" _Au revoir,_ Papa," she says as she signals her AI to end the call.

Jack isn't sure she hears the _adieu_ he lets slip in place of his usual _au revoir_ before the call disconnects, leaving him in silence once again. 

He listens for the sound of dishes in the kitchen or a snatch of song, but there's nothing but the echo of a goodbye. The goodbye he just gave Jeanette. The goodbye he never had a chance to give to Bitty. 

It's not often that Jack cries about Bitty anymore and he's not sure he wants to now. He's just tired. It's what he told Kenny and it's what he told Jeanette. He'd said as much to Shitty and Lardo the other day, but it didn't seem like such a big deal at the time.

"Happy golden anniversary, Bits," he says, and there is no reply.

Maybe it's because it really isn't their fiftieth anniversary. They missed forty-seven by just a few months, and it wasn't long enough.

He closes his eyes. If he's honest with himself, fifty years wouldn't have been long enough. Or a hundred. Or a thousand.

"God damn it," he grits out, and his cheeks burn and then go cold as tears spill out.

It's so easy to imagine warm lips brushing against his cheeks, against his mouth, against his forehead, and he sobs, knowing it's not real.

 _It's gonna be okay, sweetheart,_ he hears just as he heard in the car, in the past, in a dream that was far more real than this gray wakefulness.

He sits for a long time, until the light turns the rosy-gold of late afternoon. He stopped crying somewhere along the line, and he finds he feels strangely okay. 

"Bits?" he calls out, because in the heavy afternoon light, the house feels more not-empty than ever. 

He can almost hear the _just a second, hon_ from upstairs, from the kitchen, from outside. 

It takes a good ten or fifteen minutes between the time Jack registers the first signs of hunger and when he actually gets up to do something about it. He grabs a shake and makes some toast and eats as quickly as he safely can. 

Then, he debates for a moment and pulls the trash out from under the sink. He hasn't thrown away anything nasty, so the box of cookies he tossed in there the other day is still good. They're oatmeal chocolate-chip, a recipe Jeanette has tweaked and made her own over the years. Jack retrieves the box, puts a half-dozen cookies on a plate, and heads up to bed to read.

The cookies aren't like Bitty's but they're good. They're very good.

_Of course they are, darlin'. She learned from the best, remember?_

That she did, Jack thinks, now grieving each and every box of cookies that ended up in the trash over the past few years. He hopes Jeanette knows how much he loves her. He hopes he's told her that enough, in enough ways.

_She's gonna be okay, Jack._

Jack hopes so, he really does, but that's out of his control now.

He tries to settle in with the book he bought the other day, a new history of the American Renaissance of the 2020s. It's received a flood of good reviews, and Jack can see why, but he doesn't like it. Maybe it's because the author did too good of a job in the first part of the book, setting the stage of how bad things got in the late teens and early twenties and Jack can still remember all too well the constant, toxic grayness that hung over even the happiest days with no hint of how unbelievably, unimaginably good things would become.

He puts the book aside, pausing for a moment as he wonders if he'll finish it later. He's a little surprised at how firmly part of him thinks _no_.

Instead, it feels right to get up for a moment and retrieve an old cookie tin from the closet. He pries it open, grousing at the stiffness in his fingers, and just looks at the collection of post-it notes for a while. Some of the colors have faded to sickly tinted grays, and he knows that the ones on cheaper paper will probably crumble if he picks them up, but that doesn't stop him. 

_I'm so proud of you!_

_I love you._

_You are the best thing in my life._

_I hope you had a good day!_

_I miss you, but I'll see you soon!_

_I love you._

_I love you._

_I love you._

He nods off a few times while reading, but after the third time he jerks awake, he puts the notes back in the tin. A couple of them have crumbled as he feared, but he's not upset about it.

It's only eight o'clock, but he's tired. He's done. He knows he should take something before he goes to bed so he won't wake himself with a coughing fit, but it doesn't seem worth the bother.

Before he tells the house to turn off the lights, Jack gives in to impulse and takes Senor Bun from Bitty's nightstand. The old rabbit is too threadbare and fragile to be handled much, but he supposes it doesn't matter. Jack tucks Bun under his arm, lies down and turns off the lights.

As he drifts off, he reaches out into the emptiness beside him, seeking a warmth that is no longer there.

He falls asleep.

*

*

*

"Jack? It's time to wake up, darlin'."

Jack stretches, enjoying the feeling of yesterday's aches falling away. He takes a deep breath of sun-warmed air and opens his eyes.

Bitty is there, grinning as he leans over to give Jack a kiss. He's as golden and gorgeous as he was the day they were married, the day they first made love, the day they first kissed, but when he pulls back from the kiss there is a half-century and more (so much more) of love and knowledge in those warm brown eyes.

"I missed you so much, bud," Jack says, tears choking his voice.

"I know." Bitty kisses away his tears, first on his left cheek, then on his right. Then, he brushes his lips against Jack's. It's barely a touch, but it floods him with warmth and soon there are no more tears. "But you won't have to anymore."

"Fifty years wasn't enough," Jack says. A hundred wouldn't have been enough. Nor a thousand.

Bitty grins impishly. "Well, how does 'forever' sound, Mr. Zimmerman?"

Jack cups Bitty's cheek in his hand and something deep in his stomach thrills as Bitty leans into his touch. He is just as beautiful as the day they met, and just as beautiful as their last day together, and everything in between, and he knows there are layers upon layers of beauty he has yet to discover.

"Is that a promise?" he asks.

Bitty smiles at him, and it's all the answer Jack needs.

It's all the answer he will ever need.

He pulls Bitty into a deep and passionate kiss and lets the warmth flood in and through and around him until there is nothing but light, light, golden and glorious light...

...and for the first time in a very long time he is fully awake.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Spoilers:** Bitty dies of a sudden and massive heart attack roughly three years prior to the start of this story. It's heavily implied that Jack dies peacefully in his sleep at the end of the story and is reunited with Bitty.
> 
>  **Other notes:** Kent Parson going to my beloved St. Louis Blues and helping them win multiple Stanley Cups and building them into a powerhouse franchise whose success would long outlast his tenure is pure authorial self-indulgence. We've gone embarrassingly long as a franchise without a single Stanley Cup to our name, so this is my attempt at remedying the situation.
> 
> If anyone is wondering, the Pioneers are in Kansas City (and are a big part of Kent and Tater's story). As for the Rhéaume award, it felt like an appropriate choice of name for a trophy for the NHL's highest scoring female player (even though Manon Rhéaume was a goalie and would never have been able to win the award named after her).


End file.
